


The Edge of Never

by therev



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s01e28 The City on the Edge of Forever, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending to "City On The Edge of Forever". Edith Keeler didn't die. Jim couldn't let her. The triumvirate are trapped in the past with an altered future. Jim must correct his mistake while Spock and Bones get domestic. Set in 1930s New York and rural Georgia. Mostly pining of the space doctor variety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Boarding House

**Author's Note:**

> Also references "The Immunity Syndrome" and various other episodes. TOS characterization and canon.

Edith Keeler didn't die. Jim couldn't let her.

Jim saved Edith Keeler and condemned them all to the past and a changed world. Leonard didn't know that at the time, he was only relieved that Jim had saved the woman who had saved him, and confused by the disapproval and defeat he saw on Spock's face. But Spock explained it to him later. Really, he couldn't blame Jim. Leonard probably would have done the same, or, according to Spock, he definitely would have done the same.

The night that they saved Edith Keeler Jim spent the night with her (after a very emphatic warning from Spock about the exponentially disastrous effects of impregnating a woman who shouldn't even be alive), and Leonard and Spock stayed in the small room where Spock and Jim had been living. Leonard was still a little disoriented at times. The cordrazine was slow to leave the body and quite apart from that he'd just learned that he was stuck in 20th century Earth for, well, probably forever. It was also close to two in the morning by the time Spock explained all that had happened.

"Our only course now," Spock said, "is to find another point at which to alter history back to its original course." He stood in the center of the room, stark and serious against the quaint yellowed furnishings and the dim lamplight.

"I don't know what's more strange," Leonard said, "being in the 20th century or seeing you in Old Earth clothes."

Spock crossed his arms. "That observation is not in the least helpful, doctor."

Leonard leaned back where he sat on the one of two beds which was not cluttered with the bulbs and wires and scorched boards of what Spock had informed him was a computer. He lay back onto the pillow, hands behind his head.

"Very few observations could be at this point, Mr. Spock."

"Illogical as always, doctor. I might observe that the simplest action would be to attempt to dissuade Miss Keeler from her peacekeeping missions."

"Good luck with that," Leonard said and yawned.

Spock nodded in rare agreement. He crossed the room and sat on McCoy's bed, hands on his knees. McCoy had never seen him look so beaten, and he had seen him literally beaten. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the cordrazine, maybe it was the peculiar glow of the incandescent light, but Spock looked suddenly far too human. 

"The Captain..." Spock said, "he knew this would happen and yet he saved her in spite of my many warnings."

"He loves her," Leonard said, gently as he could. "He couldn't watch her die anymore than you could stand by while Jim was hit by a truck, even if you knew the fate of the world depended on it."

One eyebrow arched as Spock turned to look at him, "I think, doctor, that you are implying too much about my regard toward the Captain."

"Sure I am," Leonard said, nudging Spock with his leg. "Anyway, you should get some sleep. Even if we have to go hold Oppenheimer's hand we've still got nearly a decade to do it."

"I do not require sleep tonight," Spock said, then leaned over to unlace his boots. "However, I will meditate and in the morning we will confer with the Captain." He stood and removed his shoes, his socks, stripped off his clothes and changed into a pair of flannel pajamas. Leonard watched all of this, wondering how it must have been, just Spock and Jim here together, wondering about the other bed, covered in the device that Spock had built, and considering the narrow bed in which he lay, which might hold two grown men as long they were very, very close.

Spock stood over him.

"Doctor?" he said.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"May I have the extra pillow?"

Leonard gave it to him and watched as he crossed the room, dropped the pillow onto the floor then sat upon it and closed his eyes. Leonard watched him, expecting something more to happen.

"Good night, Spock," he said after a while when nothing did, and turned out the light.  
____

"Well then why not just murder the woman and be done with it?" Leonard said, too loud, and Jim tried to quiet him. Someone sitting next to Spock moved away.

It was morning and they sat in the mission, trying to decide what to do now to solve the problem of getting home, as well the additional problem of a World War that would now be lost to the enemy, and the answer, Leonard's own suggestion the night before, unthinkable in the clear-headed light of day.

"Doctor," Spock said calmly, "you are once again being unhelpful."

Leonard clutched his coffee mug so tightly that his hands shook and some of it spilled. "You're telling me there's really no other way to solve this without killing millions of people? That our goal here actually has to be to starting a war?"

"Not starting a war," Jim said, "that's going to happen no matter what. We've only got to make sure the United States starts their nuclear arms program and enters the war on time."

"Destruction, murder, generations wiped out. Kickstarting the Manhattan Project!"

"Doctor," Spock said, "consider also the practical benefits of the nuclear science discovered following this period. Energy, medicine, even space travel. I submit that all forms of energy have their pros and cons."

"It isn't the science I'm concerned about, it's the loss of life, the senseless violence of it, and moreover the fact that you two act as if it's the only way."

"It is not the only way," Spock said, "however, it is the way that it did happen. It is the course of events as they were, and every alteration will have its own dire and multiplicative consequences, which will each have their own and so on. We have an obligation to return events to their original course if possible. If you are concerned about casualties, doctor, the generations upon generations of humans who were born and may never now be born as a consequence of their parents or grandparents having been killed when they should have survived quite outweigh the original casualties."

Leonard turned to face Spock. He wished he had a hypo to stick into that green neck. "It's a fair trade, is it?" he asked. "The needs of the many, Mr. Spock?"

"Precisely."

"Bones, look--"

"No, Jim," Leonard interrupted, but quiet and calm at last, "I won't have anything to do with it. You all do what you have to." He stood.

"Where are you going?" Jim asked.

"Logically, we should not split up," Spock said.

Leonard wiped up his spilled coffee and gathered his mug. "I'll be here," he said. "I'll patch you up if you need it, but I won't be party to it. Maybe I can find a hospital or a clinic or some place where they're desperate enough to accept a doctor without any documentation."

"Doctor, I must advise against saving lives which might not have otherwise--"

Spock stopped abruptly, either taking a clue from the murderous look Leonard gave him or Jim's hand on his arm, signalling him to let this one go.

"We'll see you at dinner, Bones?" Jim asked instead.

Leonard sighed. "If I don't find a truck to throw myself in front of or a bottle to fall into." He walked across the room to stack his dishes into a bin, then tugged on the waistline of the ill-fitting pants he'd borrowed from Spock. He walked to the door and, in one last fit of petulance, turned and said rather loudly, "I can at least be grateful we didn't arrive during prohibition!"  
____

Leonard did not see them for dinner. He used some of the little money that Jim had given him before his tantrum at breakfast and took the subway to Brooklyn, to the museum there, three hundred years newer than the last time he'd seen it on a school trip as a kid, and yet somehow it was still surprising to find it there waiting for him. Until seeing Jim and Spock the night before, he hadn't been certain that the whole thing wasn't still an hallucination. Even then some doubt had remained, incredible as it all seemed. But he couldn't have hallucinated every person who pushed past him as he stood blocking the sidewalk, every man and woman on the subway, every brick of every building or crack in the pavement.

He returned late that night to find Spock alone, bent over his computer, and without a word he'd gone to bed.

The next morning he woke to the shuffling of feet, to Jim already in the room and speaking quietly with Spock still in pajamas. Leonard stayed quiet at first and watched them, heads bent together, Jim's shoulders slumped, then a word from Spock that Leonard couldn't hear, his hand on Jim's arm and a nod from Jim. He had often felt like an intruder on these two, but never more than at that moment, in the early morning glow of an Old Earth room and the noise of traffic just beginning outside. Through the window a young boy's voice called the headlines. 

Leonard cleared his throat. "Well are you going to tell me the news or do I have to wait for it to show up in the papers?"

In an attempt to convince her to abandon her principles, Jim had told Edith everything. She did not believe Jim. Consequently, or perhaps regardless of this, she was also unwilling to abandon her moral code, and in fact Jim's confession had only solidified it.

"I'm sorry she dumped you, Jim," Leonard said later after a wash and a shave, when he returned to the room to find Jim still there. Spock gathered his things and gave Jim a knowing look, likely about meddling doctors, and left to wash up for the day.

Jim smirked, the sort of smile that was really a cover for a more painful expression. "I have to admit, Bones, it smarts to be on the jilted side of things. But I certainly can't blame her. "

"No, I don't guess you could accuse her of being fickle," Leonard said and sat on the bed to pull on his boots. "It's no small thing, a man being from the future and wanting to blow up the world and all."

"Well I didn't quite phrase it that way but I suppose you're right."

"You're not unemployed now too, are you?"

Jim shook his head. "No, she wouldn't do that. But I'm afraid our next step won't be as easy to forgive." He sat next to leonard, the weight of him bringing them close together, although Leonard had noticed that all the recent manual labor had trimmed down their captain some, not to mention darkened his skin beyond space-mission pale.

"I'm going to have to begin lobbying against her, to befriend the right people and say the right--or perhaps the wrong--things. I've got to try it, Bones."

"But she'll…" Leonard began to say but couldn't. 

"She'll hate me, I know." 

"I'm sorry, Jim."

"You might be even more sorry when I say that this could take years. Spock's working on getting the," he waved his hand in the direction of the contraption across the room, no longer on the second bed where Spock must have actually slept the night before, "computer running again, but there's really nothing for it to show us at this point. But, Bones… it's very likely we're stuck. For good."

"I know, Jim."

"And what's more, you and Spock may not be able to stay here. Once I start speaking against her, speaking in favor of war, well… she wouldn't do it out of spite, but for the sake of peace she'll want to discredit me. She might start talking about space travel and aliens and if anyone wanted to look into it…"

Leonard understood. "There's no clearer evidence than a green-blooded, pointy-eared Vulcan."

Jim nodded, "I hate to send him off at all but I certainly wouldn't send him off alone, not in this world." There was no smirk to mask this injury. The idea of sending away his first officer clearly outweighed the loss of Edith Keeler's affection.

"I'll look after him, Jim, if it comes to that."

Jim laughed a little, only just audible over the noise outside, then stood. "Don't let Spock hear you say that."

"Never," Leonard promised, smiling, and stood beside him.  
___

"Are you here to plead your captain's case, Mr. McCoy?"

Leonard had returned to the little office where he had convalesced so recently. The cot was now neatly made and Edith stood just as neat and beautiful as she had been that first day, if more apprehensive, which was saying a lot, considering the state he'd been in when they'd first met.

"No ma'am," Leonard said, standing with his hands behind his back. The door was open so he spoke quietly. "I came for myself. I won't mention, well… whatever Jim told you you can be sure it was the truth, but that's not why I'm here." Edith waited, one eyebrow raised in a familiar way. No wonder Jim liked her so much. "Well," he continued, "you may not believe the rest of it but I really am a doctor. I don't have any way to prove that here but you know the city and if you know of a place, a clinic, where I could help, I'd sure appreciate being of some use."

She considered him for a long moment, arms crossed and chin raised just so. There was a noise from the kitchen and Leonard flinched. She smiled and the room actually felt suddenly warmer.

"It's just someone dropping pots and pans," she said, and uncrossed her arms. "You know, I don't know if Jim is mad and he's simply convinced you, or if you're just as mad as he is, but if you've any skill at medicine at all we certainly need you. I'll speak to a few people for you, Mr.--I mean, Dr. McCoy. I may know someone who won't ask too many questions, but I make no promises."

"Thank you, ma'am."

She squinted her eyes and considered him a little more. "In the mean time, perhaps you could see a few people here. There are some supplies in that cabinet though I keep the medicines under lock and key and I'll keep that myself. We mostly get dehydration and exposure cases, and a fair amount of small injuries. When you haven't got any patients you can… well can you cook?"

"Not at all, ma'm." 

"No doubt you can peel a potato?"

"I believe that I could."

"Then you'll work in the kitchen. This will be your office when I haven't need of it." She stepped a little closer at last, her words almost apologetic. "I can't pay you much, even if you really are a doctor."

Leonard smiled. He thought of the world as it should be, of how this woman would be dead but for their interference. Such a generous and forgiving force. How could a world without Edith Keeler really be the right one? "I'm grateful, ma'am."

Edith took a deep breath. "I won't pretend that I'm not a little concerned about having the three of you here now, but Jim saved my life, whatever else he might believe." She blinked a few times but there were no tears. "Anyway, I'll be watching you Dr. McCoy." She put out her hand and Leonard took it, cold and small in his, and thanked her again.  
____

Leonard did not serve much time in the kitchen. He had sliced only three onions and peeled a dozen potatoes before word quickly got around that there was a doctor at the mission. 

"I treated four separate head wounds, Spock!" he said later as he paced their room. "Harassment from police officers wanting them to move on, or someone trying to take their spot in an alley, or even passers-by just plain being cruel."

"It is an unfortunate trait of many humans," Spock said.

In fact he'd treated all that Edith had promised and some she had not, like a man whose hands shook for want of a drink, and a mother and child with simple vitamin deficiency.

"The primitive technology and medicine is bad enough--not even penicillin or sulfa drugs for infection--but it's just that so much of it could be so easily prevented."

"Easy for some, perhaps, but for these people, in this time, basic nutrition and shelter are--" Spock was cut off as something shorted out and smoked.

"Careful!" Leonard grabbed his hand to inspect it. "You should have more light over here anyway, you'll strain your eyes."

"I'm quite alright, doctor." Spock pulled his hand away, his gaze more like an accusation. Of what, Leonard didn't know. He stepped back as Spock returned to his work.

The exchange had shaken Leonard, pulled him out of that little office and into their room at last, where he looked around for the first time that evening. There were new parts, and new little projects. Spock had been busy. Indeed he sat a little straighter, worked a little more fervently. It seemed something had shaken Spock as well, no longer so defeated. If Spock were human Leonard might wonder if it had something to do with Jim and Edith breaking it off. Then again, Spock was half human.

"I'm surprised Jim isn't here now that he doesn't have Miss Keeler's attentions to keep him busy," he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"The captain has taken a second room, a single. We are now bunkmates, doctor."

"Splendid," Leonard said.

"He has also already begun the new mission. No doubt he is busy putting it into effect. He mentioned a meeting with some gentlemen tonight at a public drinking establishment."

"Operation: Befriend the Warmongers, eh Spock?"

Spock sighed in a very human, rather exasperated way. "If you say so, Doctor."

"A night out doesn't sound too bad, really...." Leonard said to Spock's back in his most pleasant voice, leaving it open ended but there was no sign of acknowledgement or interest. He tried a little harder. "A rare opportunity to observe Old Earth culture and customs." Nothing. He spoke a little louder. "You know, we're going to be at this a long time, possibly the rest of our lives. There's no reason you and I couldn't--"

A sudden loud hum interrupted him, a clicking sound and then the tricorder screen lit up. He moved to stand behind Spock to watch over his shoulder. On the screen the years sped by too fast for his human eyes, but Spock watched without blinking. Leonard caught just a few glimpses, of cars, of babies crying, of enemy flags and Edith's face and, once, he thought, even himself, standing in a room with Spock. Then the screen shut off abruptly.

"What happened?" he asked. "Overheated?"

"No. I have overcome that design flaw. I shut the machine down myself so as not to overtax it."

"Did you see anything? Is it all still the same?"

Spock sat with his hands in his lap, staring at the screen as if it might show him anything but his reflection in the dead, grey glass.

"It is as it was when we came through the portal. The war will still be lost and the Enterprise does not exist."

"Oh," Leonard said, and crossed the room to sit in his bed. There was nothing more he could say, and certainly nothing that he could do. 

"You know, doctor," Spock said, "the very fact that we are still here, that we have not simply winked out of existence, suggests that there is still a possibility of correcting our error."

He didn't say it like Leonard should have known better, as if the logic of it was obvious, and the dim lamp by his bed made his features seem softer, so that Leonard wasn't sure but he thought perhaps Spock was trying to comfort him. 

They sat in silence for another moment before Spock rose and straightened his shirt and stood at the foot of his bed.

"Doctor," he said quietly, "would you help move this onto the floor?"

"Of course," Leonard replied, grateful to be asked for anything at all from Spock, who seemed to find him an irritant at best since they landed in this world, in this time. They moved the machine and Spock undressed and redressed as Leonard climbed into bed.

The room was never entirely dark, not with the city just outside the window, but that night, with all of the lights out but for the light from the street, it seemed especially dark. As dark as the visions he'd had under his cordrazine fever, where every shadow on the wall seemed too sharp, to loom too close, and wherever the light shone through, visions of the past, the future, flickered by too fast.

"Are you awake, doctor?" 

"Yes, Spock."

"Perhaps tomorrow," Spock cleared his throat in a peculiar way, "perhaps we could… observe the culture and traditions of the era, as you suggested."

Leonard smiled at the ceiling. "Well I hear there's a new Clark Gabriel picture worth seeing."

There was a shuffle in the dark. "I am unaware of that entity or tradition but if you find it suitable, I will defer to your judgement as an Earth native, assuming that the captain does not have more valuable tasks for us, of course."

"Of course."

Another shuffle in the dark, the creak of springs and Leonard guessed that that was the end of the conversation. He didn't notice that the room seemed a little brighter then, the shadows less ominous. He thought, as he fell asleep, of that brief moment he'd picked out from the rest on the tricorder screen, of himself and Spock standing alone in a room he did not recognize, not in the past, but a future he had both already and not yet lived.  
___

Actually, as Leonard would later learn, the gentleman (and Leonard used the word generously) that Jim had been out befriending was a man who could provide falsified documents, even a medical license, if Jim could pay for them. It would take time, but time was one thing they had.

So several weeks later, Leonard began working at a hospital in Brooklyn, thanks to the falsified license and some well placed leverage from Jim's new friend. Jim got himself a job teaching history at a high school, which Leonard found so perfectly hilarious that he began laughing at breakfast and was still laughing by dinner the next day. Spock refused any falsified identities and instead found work repairing radios three blocks from their boarding house. 

Leonard still helped in the mission's little clinic on weekends, and Spock helped around the place when he was not busy tinkering. He didn't seem as eager now to see the future, but he'd started designing primitive communicators. Leonard told him that it wasn't necessary, that's what telephones were for, but he persisted.

Jim no longer came to the mission. He got news from Spock on what Edith was up to, but Leonard tried to stay out of that. He was a doctor, not a spy.  
___

It was a good thing to be reminded of: being a doctor. Sometimes that was almost easy to forget when they were traipsing around undiscovered planets, befriending or fighting off aliens, or even just adrift in space for weeks on end with nothing but chess and brandy and the occasional electrical burn from engineering to keep him company. On a starship, with a tissue regenerator and a hypospray, a doctor could start to feel more like a mechanic.

In the hospital, however, especially where and when he found himself then, it was impossible to forget. Medicine in the 20th century was messy, literally and figuratively, and although he'd read about and seen many of the devices and procedures in history texts or museums, it wasn't the same as hands-on experience. 

So when he started work at the hospital he explained to his new colleagues that he'd begun his practice in a little town in Mississippi where the technology hadn't quite caught up. There was a nurse among them named Waters who reminded him of Christine, only younger. She told him later that he wasn't the only doctor there who was a little behind the times, and then together they'd set and cast the broken arm of an eight year old boy. It had reminded Leonard very much of patching up the Horta.

He was horrified by the lack of caution they used around their radiation equipment and said so, and everyone just laughed at the funny old country doctor.  
___

In December, Spock caught a cold.

Leonard had been treating fevers and pneumonia at the hospital all week, so it shouldn't have been a surprise, but he had never actually seen Spock ill. He'd seen him injured and wracked with pain, even possessed by alien entities, but never brought low by a plain old virus. He had assumed from past evidence that Spock's Vulcan physiology was impervious to any sort of bug that could infect humans.

"I guess this is your human half showing through."

Leonard had returned to their shared room to find Spock meditating on the floor, shaking with chills even in his coat, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Every text Leonard had ever read had told him that Vulcans didn't sweat. 

"Do all humans receive insult as medical treatment?" Spock said in the voice of someone who couldn't breathe through their nose. It would have been funny if Leonard hadn't been uncertain of what that meant for a Vulcan. He tugged on Spock's arm and, to his surprise, Spock gave in and stood.

"Only when the patient is so easy to rile."

"You practice peculiar medicine, doctor."

"Well you're a sweaty Vulcan so who's peculiar now?" Leonard pulled off Spock's coat, helped him into bed and piled all of the extra blankets onto him. 

"I assure you, Leonard, I am capable of self-healing if you would desist your interference."

"Well you won't do it on the cold floor!" Leonard said, but Spock was right. He didn't actually know what to do for a sick Vulcan, none of the texts dealt with it, just enough anatomy for damage control, probably because Vulcans didn't like outworlders to know their weaknesses.

He sat on the bed, tucking the blankets around Spock like a child. "I might suggest a cool bath but you'd just be miserable and anyway we haven't got one. I can't give you an aspirin because I don't know what sort of effect an antiplatelet will have on your blood."

"Is there a treatment in which you cease discussing which treatments you will not prescribe?" The catty remark lacked punch with Spock's eyes closed. He was beginning to shake less already. Leonard felt for his pulse. It raced like a thoroughbred. Leonard was pretty sure that was normal.

"I prescribe rest, Mr. Spock."

"And perhaps quiet, doctor."

"I guess I can save my vaudeville rehearsal for another time."

In the morning, Leonard woke to find Spock already dressed and looking the green-blooded version of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He smirked at Leonard and Leonard just congratulated him on a speedy recovery and went off to shave.

Two days later, Leonard came down with a more human version of the illness.

"Don't look so smug," he said to Spock, voice nasally and hoarse. He was bundled up in bed where Spock had left him that morning. "I probably got it from the hospital or the mission, not from you."

Spock had just returned from work and hung up his hat but not his coat. The winter was especially hard for him, especially in their drafty old room.

"I would take no such satisfaction. I am relieved you have not succumbed to your disease."

"It's a cold, Spock, not the plague."

"Really, doctor? I would not have surmised it to be such a minor illness by the level of your complaint." 

Leonard blew his nose loudly into a handkerchief. "Surmise that!" he said, and Spock, the villain, actually smiled. 

"I stopped by the mission to speak to Miss Keeler. She sent this soup for you, which she promises to be most efficacious."

"If that's chicken soup, I think I could kiss you."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "And risk passing the illness once again?"

"Just bring it over, you…" but the soup smelled so good when Spock brought it over, complete with a spoon and a fresh handkerchief, he couldn't think of anything terrible that he wanted to call him. It was still quite warm, even though he could hear the cold wind outside the window. Spock must have held it close on the walk from the mission.

"Thanks," Leonard said softly, and Spock inclined his head in acknowledgement, then went to pull his own dinner from one of the sacks he'd carried in. "You know," Leonard said, "I think it's about time we got out of this rat trap. The heating is terrible and what we really need is a kitchen."

"A private bath would also be preferable."

"It would indeed, Mr. Spock."  
___

They spent Christmas Eve at Jim's new place. It wasn't large or flashy and it was situated in a somewhat questionable neighborhood, but it was more suitable for the kind of image and entertaining their new mission required.

"This army captain, Briggs, thinks he might know somebody who can get me in teaching at West Point," Jim said, drinking what Leonard was sorry wasn't Saurian brandy as they all sat in Jim's pre-furnished sitting room, crowded around the radiator. "It would help me make a name for myself, put me in contact with a lot of important people."

"That intergalactic charm just might carry you all the way to Roosevelt, Jim," Leonard said, raising his glass and Jim smiled.

"If I could be of any service, captain," Spock said, so eager to be first officer again.

"No, Spock, you're doing precisely what you should now.” He pointed to the radio cabinet across the room, the only gift which had been exchanged that night. "Bringing us into the twenty-third century. " He gave a placating smile that made even Leonard itch.

The radio was actually one of two communicators Spock had built, the other was in their room at the boarding house, made from salvaged pieces of damaged sets around the shop where Spock worked. In fact it could still pick up radio signals as well, which made for a suitable disguise.

Jim's comment didn't seem to satisfy Spock. "Captain--"

"Please, Spock, just Jim."

"Jim, I am aware that my presence here complicates the mission, the goal of which requires you to appear to be someone who is in no way affiliated with an entity such as myself--"

"Spock--"

"--an entity which cannot be neatly explained, and connects you to a time and place which should not, and indeed now, does not exist. This is a fact, Jim, and I do not require you to be polite about it to spare my feelings, as I have none on the matter."

Jim looked chastised and nodded. "Of course, you're right. I've already told Bones there may be a time when the two of you have to go a little farther afield. But I think we're safe for a while yet."

"Meanwhile, we've been looking for a new place in town," Leonard said, grasping at the chance to change the subject even a little. "Some place with a kitchen and a great big bath. I'd love a garden but I'm not getting my hopes up."

Jim laughed but it wasn't easy. "Who'd have ever thought, the two of you setting up house."

Spock only shook his head and never once touched his drink.

They didn't stay late, they still had to take the subway back across town, and as they left Jim shook both their hands as warmly and sincerely as Leonard had ever seen, lingering in the doorway, and made them promise to meet him for a meal once a week from then on. It occurred to Leonard on their ride home that this was a very lonely mission for Jim; the weight of the world literally on his shoulders and unable to rely on his closest friends or any of his crew for help. Leonard's disapproval of the whole thing had made him blind to it, not to mention that he'd started to resent Jim just a little for pushing Spock away, even if, back in their own time and place, he had been jealous of their closeness now and then.

The other half of that pair walked beside him in the cold that night, wrapped in two coats with a scarf so high up on his face and his hat so far down that all Leonard could see was his eyes when they passed under the street lamps.

"You know," Leonard said, "Jim would have you right there beside him on this if he could."

Spock's hat raised with his brow. Leonard knew that expression. The one that said 'tell me something I don't know'.

"I am quite aware of that, doctor."

"Well he cares is all I mean!"

"He is the captain; it is in his interest to care about his crew."

"Oh, stow it, Spock, I know it's not easy being away from him and stuck with me. It's hard on him, too. I don't think he's sleeping. I half wanted to examine him but it's not as if my primitive ministrations make much of a dent these days."

Spock stopped walking and turned to him, "I won't argue that last point, however, I feel that your other observations are not only overly subjective but entirely non-constructive. The captain--Jim has a job to do and I have mine. Mine happens to be remaining undiscovered as an extraterrestrial entity. Your job… well I have yet to discern your job, doctor, though it seems to currently include blocking my way."

Leonard turned to look behind him. The doorway to the boarding house was there. They'd been standing outside of their building. He turned back to Spock and gave his best glare, then stepped out of the way.

"Merry Christmas to you, too!" he said to Spock's back, and stood out on the sidewalk for a little longer, just to spite him.  



	2. The Apartment

Almost two months later, on the other side of town, Leonard woke early on a Saturday morning before even the sun had risen, just a soft glow of it on the way up, then brighter still as it reflected off of the melting snow on the streets outside their windows. There was no sound of traffic yet, just the clod of horse hooves as a policeman passed their building. It was his favorite time of day in this century, on this planet, in this city. 

At his back, Spock breathed in and out. He didn't always come to bed but almost always ended up as close as he dared to Leonard, probably not even intentionally, but some ancient and highly logical biological function of Vulcans to seek out a source of heat, like lizards on hot rocks. Spock never spoke of it and Leonard never asked. He certainly never mentioned lizards. 

It had taken all of January to find an apartment that they could afford, could accommodate both of them as well as Spock's inventions, and still leave them with enough money for saving. They would need a nest egg for when they had to leave the city. 

It was a one bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen open to the sitting room and a bedroom that had space for two beds and not much more. Spock had insisted that his more sensitive projects must necessarily be housed there, so they had pushed both beds together and built another table for that purpose. They agreed that once winter was over they would move one bed into the living room where Leonard would hang a curtain for privacy and Spock could tinker in the bedroom long into the night. But until the weather grew warmer it was a more efficient arrangement, until then Leonard would lie there just a little while longer on Saturday mornings.

However, he did endeavor to outdo Spock whenever he could, and so he eventually rose before Spock was awake, or before he let it be known that he was awake, and dressed and shaved and washed up. The real gem of the place was the private bath, with a tub so big Leonard could just about stretch out in it. Spock had been unimpressed, especially since they had passed up larger rooms without such a tub, but he had not argued over it.

When Leonard came out of the bathroom Spock was up already, percolator and a kettle on the stove and the smell of coffee filling the room.

"Mornin', Spock!" 

"Leonard," Spock said without much real acknowledgement as he was bent over their dinette table inspecting his latest work: a telescope. It was a strange notion that they could only now observe the faraway places they had traveled through, planets they had walked on or sped past.

Leonard put on his shoes and went downstairs to purchase a paper from the boy shouting on the street. When he came back up, Spock had already poured Leonard a cup of coffee and made his own tea, and was sitting exactly as Leonard had left him. 

In an hour they would meet Jim for breakfast at a diner on the corner of their block, something they did every week to catch up on each party's news, though he and Spock rarely had anything very pressing to tell, perhaps a piece of furniture they'd found and repaired, or an interesting case at the hospital.

He sat in the chair opposite Spock, only just able to see him around the large tube he'd gotten from who knew where, snapped open the paper, and waited for his coffee to cool.  
___

Spring brought a vibrancy to the city that they had yet to see, and a notable lift of spirits in Spock (if one knew where to look), who all but basked in the rising warmth, like a housecat in a window sill. It also brought fewer car accidents from ice on the road at the hospital, fewer cases of exposure in the clinic, and tired faces on the street seemed a little less strained.

Things had even settled for Jim, who had begun seeing a woman named Caroline whose father was a senator and who had put the color back into Jim's cheeks. He smiled through their breakfasts and teased Spock about his non-regulation haircut, grown out longer to help cover those ears, and their little prison of time didn't seem so bad afterall.

After breakfast, they would go shopping, just him and Spock, wandering through the market while Spock chose the most appealing of various fruits and vegetables, appraising them with sincerity by whatever standards he applied, then take the long way home through the park.

They didn't go to see any other films. Spock had found them an unrealistic portrayal of the culture and it was a waste of money anyway. But Spock had completed his telescope and liked to take it out into the roof of their building and have a look at the skies they had once traveled. Leonard would join him, as much to keep from being alone in their room as anything else. He could have gone out with Nurse Waters, he already had done twice, but she was so young and so of her time that it had not been easy, and Spock had been too quiet when he had returned home. Anyway, some nights, if he was lucky, he could even get Spock to have a drink with him.

"Can you see Vulcan on that thing?" Leonard asked one such night, sitting in one of two chairs they'd found up there.

"I am able to observe the Vulcan trisystem," Spock said, looking through the telescope, "that is to say, 40 Eridani A and its two companion stars, although not at this time of year."

"Too bad you couldn't get a message to them. They're already flying around the galaxy by now, aren't they?"

"Quite right, doctor, however, Vulcans do not discover warp technology for almost another two decades."

"Well I don't guess we're in a hurry here." Leonard sipped his drink. "That's assuming we haven't affected the timelines of other planets."

Spock straightened and walked over to sit next to Leonard. He wore a sweater even in the warm May evening. "I do not believe that is likely. It is certain, however, that we will have altered any occurrences following contact with Earth." He lifted his drink, sniffed it, then sat it back down. "Earth may not make advances in space travel at the same rate, or may not make such discoveries a priority at all. Man may not take to the stars for further centuries, if ever."

"Imagine Jim Kirk never going into space, never being a captain."

Spock nodded. "What's more, doctor, while you and I both may live, out there in time, it is unlikely we should ever meet, having never served on the Enterprise together."

"I guess that's the world spared a few arguments, at least."

"Perhaps, but consider the lives you have saved, before and after joining Starfleet, both by your own hand or by the procedures which you have pioneered."

Leonard might have blushed. "Spock, I do believe that is the nicest thing you've ever said to me." He batted his lashes for effect. "And on a moonlit night."

"Though your medicine is largely useless to my race, I can appreciate the value it has had for your own, as well as others. However, I do not see why making such an observation during this particular point in the lunar cycle bears any significance."

"No, I guess you wouldn't," Leonard said, smiling even wider.

They sat for a while in easy silence, watching the stars. A car horn drifted up from below and someone shouted obscenities. Leonard had something he wanted to say but wasn't sure if he should, or if it would make any difference. 

"Spock," he began, shifting in his seat, "I just wanted to say that I am glad we've met, even if, you know, if we won't meet. In the future, I mean. I'm glad we have now." He felt a little foolish.

Spock nodded. "Given our current circumstances, it is mutually beneficial that we are acquainted."

Leonard thought about that, opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, then said, "Alright, I'll take it."  
___

Their little bubble of ease and routine burst that summer. Several things happened in close succession, all of which led to one conclusion: it was time for Leonard and Spock to leave.

The first was the death of the elderly man who employed Spock, found one morning in the shop which was also his home, and although it was agreed upon by everyone to be natural causes, it brought unwanted attention to Spock, who had been the one to find him. He was questioned by the police, fortunately able to stretch his Vulcan code of truth enough to give them a false address, and never returned.

Around that time, Edith had also begun to ask Leonard about Jim. There were new voices, she said, new arguments for war, and the speeches had sounded familiar, minus the time and space travel. Leonard had only shook his head and said, oh, he didn't know about that, but that Jim was well the last time he'd seen him and that he surely sent his best.

The final event came on an especially hot Saturday afternoon, one of those nice days that Leonard liked so much. They had finished their shopping and were walking through the park when a foul ball from a stickball game struck Spock square in the back of the head. It was a simple thing, just kids playing and a rubber ball gone a little wild, but Spock must have been off balance, because he stumbled forward, his head connecting with the corner of a bench, vegetables tumbling this way and that.

Leonard tried to wave people off but a crowd drew quickly. One kid asked what all that green stuff was, and Leonard heard several others, children and adults, whisper about those strange ears. 

He picked Spock up and brushed him off and handed Spock a handkerchief to cover the wound on his head from prying eyes. Luckily, Spock could still walk, though he was a little wobbly now and then, especially on the stairs up to their apartment.

"I am quite alright, doctor," Spock said with some force once Leonard had him seated at their dinette table.

"The hell you say," Leonard said, tearing a clean pillowcase into bandages. 

"I fail to see why you are angry when it was I who was struck." Spock pulled away the handkerchief from his head, frowning at his own blood. There was rather a lot of it.

"I'm angry," Leonard said, "because if I hadn't wanted ice cream, we would have been out of there sooner and this wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't dodged that ball I would have been hit instead of you, and if I hadn't jumped through a goddamned time portal we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place!"

"I fail to see how shouting is constructive at all."

"Because it makes me feel better!" The kettle whistled even as he said it. He poured some water into a bowl and brought it over to where Spock sat.

"Doctor, I will be quite alright if you will just--"

Leonard pulled the other chair over and sat. "Can it, Spock, let me do this for you."

Spock looked almost uncertain, though Leonard could not have explained why, then he nodded silently in consent and Leonard set to work cleaning the wound. The water was probably too hot, but Spock showed no sign of discomfort. He watched Leonard for a moment, hands back and forth from bowl to forehead, water going instantly green with blood, but he soon closed his eyes and that was a little easier for Leonard. Spock's hair had grown quite long, more like Chekhov's than his usual bowl cut, and Leonard brushed it back carefully, soft and a little wet between his fingers. 

"You're going to need a couple of stitches," Leonard said, as gentle as his hand was on Spock's forehead. "I've got a needle but no anaesthetic."

"I do not require it," Spock said just as softly, as if they had some prior, secret understanding.

"I'm sorry this happened."

"Is that an expression of sympathy, or regret at the revelation of my identity?"

"Both, but I doubt you'll make the papers or anything. We just won't go through the park anymore."

"No, Leonard," he caught Leonard by the wrist to stop him working, his eyes open though he spoke calmly and softly still. "We must not risk Jim's mission, even if it seems now to be a trivial incident. We are seen weekly with the captain, and many have remarked on my… complexion. This is but one in a series of events." He took a breath."I must leave the city. It is the logical course." 

"You must… you mean on your own?" Spock still held Leonard's wrist, and just as Leonard began to feel a surge of irritation he felt something else, of regret and loss, and then it was gone and Spock released him.

"Yes, doctor. I am quite capable of navigating this planet on my own."

"No, Spock," Leonard said, leaning forward into the other man's space. "We go together or we don't go at all, that was always the plan! Jim wouldn't hear of us splitting up and neither will I!" He held Spock's gaze, challenging him, his face hot and red. He was gripping Spock's knees hard. He leaned back and let them go.

Spock sighed. "Very well, doctor. Such theatrics are hardly necessary."

Leonard stood, considered Spock sitting there quietly, hair all a mess and a gash on his head. His knees were dirty and the tips of his ears had gone especially green. In the end Leonard cleared his throat, and said only, "I'll get the needle."  
___

"Just as well," Jim said a little sadly when Leonard and Spock told him they were leaving, sitting at the diner for what was probably their last breakfast together. "As it happens I'm headed out of the city anyway, to Washington. Likely within the month."

"Boy, you don't mess around," Leonard said. Jim smiled but it was a tired smile. He'd broken up with Caroline recently and lost a little more weight. Leonard didn't like it. "Drink your orange juice, Jim."

Jim smiled again but drank his juice. "Do you know where you're going?" 

Leonard looked at Spock. They'd had this conversation the night before without a definite decision. Spock didn't want to go far, in case Jim should need them, rural New York, maybe, or Pennsylvania now that Jim was headed to D.C. But Leonard had other ideas.

"The doctor believes that Georgia would be suitable, as it is familiar to him and the winter climate is more tolerable," Spock said, and Leonard waited for the logical argument against it, but none came. "I agree with his assessment."

After a moment Jim cleared his throat and Leonard realized he'd just been sitting there watching Spock with a dumb grin on his face. "Oh, well, I've asked the hospital to contact a few counties down there, see if some place needs a doctor. Still waiting to hear back. But there's a train to Atlanta or Savannah, and we should be able to hire a car from there to, well, wherever."

"What about money?" Jim asked.

"We've got some put aside. Things will be cheaper down there. Work may not be as easy for Spock to find but then you don't need much for a simple country life."

"You sound fairly pleased about the whole thing, Bones."

"I won't pretend I'm sorry to be going home, even if home won't be there for a few hundred years. But I am sorry to leave you, Jim. You'll write us, of course?"

"You're starting to sound like my mother. But of course," Jim said, his hand on Leonard's shoulder. He reached out to Spock as well. "You won't get rid of me that easily, gentlemen."

Later, on the roof of their apartment, one of their last nights in the city, Spock asked if Leonard thought the captain was well.

"I don't think he's sick or anything, Spock, but I think stress of the mission, of such an extended operation with such an uncertain outcome wears on a man."

"Colloquially, I believe the saying is to be 'in over one's head'."

"That he may be, but it's Jim. He's going to try. He doesn't believe in losing, you know."

Spock sat beside him. Leonard was stretched out in his chair, hands behind his head. There was no telescope, it was packed for travel already, but they watched the stars anyway. 

"I have looked once more at the data the tricorder recorded at the portal," Spock said. "I wanted to review it again before we left the city."

"Anything new?"

"No. It is clear to me now that the data is a fixed record and no changes we make will be reflected there, which is why I find it curious that there is some footage of us, of you and I, here in this time, in our apartment together."

"Yes, I think I saw it. Back at the boarding house. How's that work?"

"I do not know, doctor. I reasoned that the two outcomes concerning Miss Keeler, her death and, later, her peace work which delayed the war, were recorded before and after your entry, but this does not explain my presence in the data unless the portal had already accounted for our interference and adjusted time accordingly."

Leonard sat up straighter, "I think I understand that but I'm not sure what it means."

"It means, Leonard, that the Guardian of Forever knew that Jim and I would enter the portal before we had even done it, that the timeline already reflected that action."

"You're saying we're meant to be here? That perhaps Jim was even meant to save her after all? But wouldn't that mean Jim's efforts are for nothing?"

"I am not suggesting that. I am merely stating that there are variables which we had not at first considered. It is my theory that the portal accounts for all outcomes. That it is predictive, but not conclusive. It is regrettable that we did not delay our entry longer, so that I could have understood it before following you through the portal, but that was not, apparently, to be. At any rate, I have decided that it is unwise to consult the data further, as we may only damage time in unknown ways by knowing what is to come."

"Well it may be the future but technically it's our past."

"Quite, but for us it is an unknown past."

Leonard sat back, hands slack in his lap, feeling helpless. "So we're in the same situation. Why is it you never have any good news for me, Spock?"

"I shall endeavor to improve in that area, doctor."


	3. The Farm House

They bought a secondhand trunk and all of their things fit into it together, except for the telescope, which Spock wrapped carefully in canvas and rope. The rest of his inventions were destroyed, taken apart as carefully as they'd been put together, including the radio-communicators, which had rarely been used. Spock saved only the cannibalized pieces of the tricorder and a few valuable parts he could not easily replace. These also fit into the trunk.

They saw Jim for the last time at their apartment as they loaded the taxi that would take them to the train station. He gave them some money which they tried to refuse, but he pulled rank and Spock accepted it when Leonard still wouldn't. Then he shook Leonard's hand and Leonard cursed gently and pulled him in for a hug, Jim feeling small in his arms. He shook Spock's hand with both of his own, lingering long enough that Leonard stepped away and checked his medical bag one last time to be sure he had everything, even though he knew that he did.

On the train to Atlanta, Spock watched the country go by their window. Leonard leaned over a few times to see something Spock pointed out or asked about, but mostly he slept, or spoke to the woman and children across the aisle. It was a day's ride, overnight and into the next morning, followed by a hired truck which carried them south to Bibb County, so that it was in the full heat of an August afternoon that they stood in the knee-high grass in front of the one-story clapboard house that the county had donated to their new rural doctor.

Leonard wiped his forehead and the back of his neck with a handkerchief as the truck bounced off down the dirt road, leaving them there with their trunk and telescope. The porch was a little crooked and some of the paint was peeling, but it looked solid enough. 

"I guess it could use a coat of paint," he said to Spock who squinted in the high afternoon sun. "You ever paint a house, Spock?"

Spock looked at him. "Have you, doctor?"

Leonard smiled. "Right now I don't care if it doesn't have a roof as long as it's got a bed. I am completely wiped out."

Spock knelt to touch the grass, dug his fingers into the soil and studied it. The house stood on several acres of cleared land, surrounded by pines, behind the house was a barn, the door off its hinges, and an outhouse.

"Is this your Eden, doctor?" Spock asked, brushing the dirt from his fingers and looking uncertain.

"I never said it was paradise, I just said it was home. Now, c'mon, let's get this stuff inside and have a look around. Who knows, Spock, you might like it. You might be a farmer at heart." He paused, then began to laugh at himself and said, "You've certainly got the green thumb for it."

Spock just frowned and Leonard laughed even louder at that.  
___

The house seemed a palace compared to their apartment, and though it was dusty and they had to patch walls here and there to keep out the mice, it was roomy and welcoming once it was all cleaned up, situated just close enough to downtown to have electricity, but no phone. There was room to spare for the two of them, and it was nice to have a bit of privacy now and then, but if Leonard was honest with himself, he missed sharing a room with Spock. Some part of him hoped the winter would be harsher than expected. 

His office was in the front of the house, with an old exam table and a cabinet that had come second hand from the hospital in town. A little waiting parlour received patients, and he even had a sign on the door that read, "The Doctor is In". The kitchen was large and the dining room had a full size table where Leonard said they should always have dinner, rather than letting it get cluttered up with Spock's inventions, especially since Spock had the whole barn to himself for experiments of any size or dubious safety level.

It was hardly the home that Leonard had left behind somewhere in the future, but there was something in the air, something in the quality of light that poured in through lace curtains on a clear morning that reminded Leonard of home.

"I should like to start a garden as soon as possible," Spock said in the first few days as they took a break from working on the house. He stood out in that high grass again, looking perfectly at peace with the sun beaming down on him, his dark head bare and wearing fewer layers than he ever had in New York. 

Leonard sat in the shade of the porch. "Me too, but you know you've got to do that sort of thing at certain times of the year. We'll have to decide what to plant and then find out when to plan it. I'd like to get in some herbs and things, too."

Spock agreed. 

"You know, Spock, you might want to wear a hat or something, even if we are secluded. I know you're a Vulcan but that sun's pretty fierce today."

"Thank you, doctor," Spock said, as dismissively as he could manage. "I'll keep that under consideration."  
___

Leonard began seeing patients almost immediately, mostly mill workers and their families, surrounding farmers, and a whole lot of babies. It seemed like when there was nothing to do people just got bored and had another baby. And while most of the mill workers could pay something, many of his patients paid in trade, anything from a basket of strawberries and a bushel of corn, to help painting the house. One farmer came over on a tractor and mowed down the weeds, another, whose young son Leonard had brought back from a terrible fever, paid with a half dozen laying hens and a pocket folding camera with a sticking shutter.

Spock found tools in the barn and several books at the library and began planting for a winter harvest. Carrots and cabbage and collards. He also began to wear a wide-brimmed hat after discovering that, in fact, being Vulcan didn't save him from the Earth sun. Leonard had kept his told-you-sos to himself, and spent an evening daubing aloe vera onto Spock's unnaturally pink nose and cheeks.

When there were patients around the house, Spock would try to keep out of sight. Everyone knew the doc had a man living there, but they spoke of him as they might an old fashioned valet, or a groundskeeper. One patient, a farmer's wife, referred to him as "your man" to Leonard and Leonard smiled crookedly and said they were old friends, that they had served together, and she gave him a look of solemn understanding, said that her brother had fought at Verdun, and then gave Leonard a peach pie, and a loaf of bread still warm from the oven.

They had their first letter from Jim just a couple of weeks after arriving. Leonard read the letter out loud, standing on the porch seconds after being handed it by the mailman who still made his rounds in an old buckboard. Spock read over his shoulder, hands still covered in the earth he'd been tilling. It contained nothing very important. He asked how they were settling, gave some description of his new apartment in Washington. He didn't say that he missed them, or that he wasn't sure that any of this was going to work anyway, but it was there in the ways that he did not say it. 

Leonard gave the letter to Spock without comment and returned to his office. Through the window he could see Spock read it once again, then fold it carefully. He could hear Spock's footsteps enter the house, toward his room and back, passing by the window on the way out to the garden.  
___

The country was quieter than the city, without any cars or pedestrians passing on the streets, but life made itself known in other ways, crickets at dusk, frogs after rain, birds in the morning and cicadas in the heat of the day. On Sunday mornings all other sound was drowned by the rattle and thump of their Maytag on the back porch, or the snap of sheets and shirts drying on the line. At noon, in their parlour, it might be the National Farm and Home Hour crackling through their radio, at night it could be Stravinsky or Bing Crosby or Duke Ellington.

"Doctor, your grasp of strategy is nonexistent," Spock said, winning yet another game of chess as they sat one evening in the yellow lamplight of their parlor, music softly playing. 

"Yeah well I bet your grasp of neurosurgery isn't so hot. Let's see who'd win that competition."

Spock smiled and that felt like victory enough. "Perhaps that is a challenge left for another evening." They cleared away the board and pieces from the table and Leonard went to make tea. 

When he returned, Spock had spread a cloth over the table and brought over an extra lamp and the broken camera. Leonard chose a book from the shelf and sat as if to read but watched Spock carefully disassemble the shutter, extracting tiny screws and springs. He cleaned some pieces with a cloth, gently blew the dust off of other pieces with great care and patience, long fingers wielding tweezers and a screwdriver as skilfully as they could maneuver a shuttlecraft or even a starship. 

Spock's hands paused and Leonard found that he'd been caught watching. He cleared his throat.

"Think she'll ever fire again, commander?" he asked.

"I'm certain of it, doctor," Spock said.

Leonard nodded his approval, sipped his already cooling tea, and returned to his copy of 'Diseases and Ailments Common to the Factory Worker and other Manual Labourers'.  
___

Fall came gradually, hard to recognize among the evergreens, easier to see in the garden, in Spock's wardrobe, in the declining rate of farming accidents. 

It also brought with it an anniversary, of an accident, of a decision, of a change to their life and that of the planet, possibly forever. They had been in this wrong place and time for a year. Leonard didn't mention it and neither did Spock, and Jim wrote nothing of it in his letters, which they received about twice a month, as winter crept in, tired and drab.

The slower days gave him too much time to reflect. Jim's letters were hopeful, friends in high places, parties he'd attended, women he'd met, but the newspapers still showed too much suffering. The country was still hurting, scrabbling up from depression, choking on dust, and Leonard could only think of what was to come, whether or not Jim succeeded.

Spock harvested cabbages and collards until the grass stopped growing and began to turn brown. The fire in the hearth kept the house warm most of the season, but there were a few nights when they pulled a mattress into the sitting room to be nearer to the fire and it might as well have been the boarding house or their little apartment. Neither of them ever complained, Spock because his pride wouldn't let him, Leonard because he was glad for the excuse to be so close, to be distracted by anything but the future.  
___

The next Spring, Leonard gave Spock a car, an old Model T bought from a patient. It had belonged to the man's father and had just been sitting in his barn for years, broken down. Leonard paid for most of it in trade. It had to be pulled into the yard by horses, the engine having been partly disassembled, parts used on various tractors and other machinery. The canopy was missing and so was the steering wheel. 

Leonard bounced on the balls of his feet as he presented it to him. "I got you a new project," he said.

Spock eyed it dubiously, one hand on his hip, that hat a little crooked on his head. "I believe the words you want, in the colloquial, are 'a heap of junk'."

Leonard smiled. "You don't fool me. I know you pretty well by now, Mr. Spock, and I can see the gleam in your eye. Here I've got you your very own antique internal combustion engine, just waiting for your loving touch to bring it back to life."

Spock gave him a dirty look for a Vulcan, but he let Leonard take his picture, standing awkwardly in front of it.

"C'mon," Leonard said, giddy as a child, "let's sit in it."  
___

They befriended one neighbor family in particular, after the youngest boy had wandered into their field to squat in the tall grass and watch Spock from afar, then to follow him closely, watching him in the garden or in the barn working on the car. Their family name was Johnson and the mother was a couple of months pregnant with her fifth child, had been in to see Leonard once already. She reminded him of Uhura, especially when she spoke, voice soft and melodic, but stern and certain when it needed to be. 

They lunched with them a few times that summer. Mr. Johnson worked at the mill and knew a lot about engines. He helped Spock with the car and even taught him to drive it once it was running. Twice Leonard and Spock helped with the Johnson's modest harvest, corn and then peaches, Leonard sweating from top to toe and Spock in long sleeves, dry as a bone. 

Leonard hadn't seen Spock sweat again since that fever at the boarding house, not even on the hottest days, but every evening Spock came in dusty or dirty or muddy or with bits of hay in his pockets and grease on his hands, smudged on his cheek. Leonard liked to see what art each new day would bring. There was something very satisfying about a filthy Vulcan.  
___

On a Sunday afternoon on the edge of Summer, they walked down to the river, about a mile from the house. Leonard stripped down to his shorts, his forearms and neck tanned brown and red, his shoulders and chest and all the rest of him pale as a babe. He waded out into the cool, quick water while Spock stood barefoot in the shallows, pants legs rolled up, bent over a homemade bathyscope, testing it for water-tightness. Spock had started a journal cataloguing the local flora and fauna, some of which he was certain was now, in the future, extinct. 

After a while they sat together under a shade oak, on a blanket Leonard had brought, and ate dried figs and fresh apples and a little bread. They didn't say much. Spock pointed out some varieties of plant that interested him, Leonard watched over Spock's shoulder as he drew their likeness in his journal, and they each named the birds nearby by the calls they could recognize. A breeze kicked up, like a promise of autumn through Leonard's damp hair, the smell of wild onions and something sweet.

"Are you cold, doctor?" Spock asked, startling Leonard. Even more startling was the completely unhidden look of concern in Spock's brown eyes. "You are shivering."

"Oh, well I guess I am," Leonard said, and looked around for his towel, but Spock was already pulling the edge of the blanket up to cover his shoulders. "Thank you, Spock."

Spock only nodded and returned to his journal, sitting crosslegged and barefoot, hat pushed back off of his head, secured by a leather thong around his neck. His hair was quite long again. Leonard had been surprised to find that it had some soft wave to it at that length. He had a sudden vision of reaching out, of grasping Spock by the back of the neck, his hand buried deep in that hair, and laying him down on their blanket, and, well, what? Finding himself on the receiving end of the most dispassionate 'Doctor, exactly what do you think you are doing?' that Spock could manage. Instead, he reached out and brushed back the hair over Spock's ear, revealing the soft green tip he had begun to miss seeing. 

Spock raised one dark brow and watched him from the corner of his eye.

"I think it's about time for another haircut," Leonard said, and Spock relaxed visibly, his gaze returning to his drawing.

"I have been thinking the same, doctor."  
___

"I still fail to see the point in carving perfectly good vegetables to ward off an entity which does not exist, and therefore presents no danger, even if I could understand how a mutilated squash might threaten such a creature in the first place."

They sat on the porch in the late autumn dusk, Leonard on the porch floor carving a pumpkin. Spock in the rocking chair. 

"It's a tradition, Spock. You can't tell me there aren't things that Vulcans do which have no value except to honor history and prior generations."

Spock raised a brow in agreement. "A most logical argument, doctor."

Leonard smiled and stabbed the gourd once again in it's crooked smile, feeling a little too satisfied with himself.

"Doc!" 

The shout came from the road, a figure blurred in the low light of dusk, small and moving quickly toward them. Young Tom Johnson was out of breath once he reached the porch, panting out that it was time, that his mother was ready and needed the doc.

Leonard was on his feet in a flash and gathered his bag from the office. He couldn't find his coat and decided to forget it.

"Spock!" he shouted, hoping that Spock would be willing to drive him, but Spock was already at the door, holding Leonard's coat.

At the Johnson's Leonard found that he was almost too late, that Mrs. Johnson was about to have her newest child without him. She tried to smile when she saw him, but her smiled turned into a cry, flickering lamplight glinting off of bright teeth and wet cheeks. He shooed all but the oldest girl out of the room and Spock took his coat and hat, preparing to leave the room, too, but Leonard asked him to stay, and told Mrs. Johnson that it was all fine, just fine, that this was going to be the easiest one yet. The oldest daughter, Cecelia, said she'd already put water on to boil and brought clean linens, and then Leonard and Mrs. Johnson got very busy very quickly.

Leonard had been right, it had been easy, especially after Spock had gone to hold Mrs. Johnson's hand. She had calmed considerably, the look of pain in her brow easing, then Leonard handed her a brand new baby girl, and even a Vulcan telepath couldn't have competed with that kind of medicine.

Before the others were allowed to come back in, as Mrs. Johnson and her two daughters smiled and rested and cried in turn, Leonard watched Spock, still sitting at Mrs. Johnson's bedside. He was no longer holding her hand, but reached out to touch the child's foot, peeking out from the swaddling. He held it for a moment, then tucked the blankets around it. He caught Leonard watching him, and gave Leonard a look that Leonard knew very well, a look that was usually followed by the word, 'fascinating'.

A few hours later they arrived home, a pumpkin still half carved on the porch. Leonard felt absolutely beaten, even though it hadn't been much work for him. He couldn't imagine how tired Mrs. Johnson must have been. He shed his coat and hat, hung them by the door and Spock shuffled in behind him to do the same. He'd kill for a bath but he wasn't going to heat enough water at that time of night, so he'd settled for a cup of tea and a slice of pie.

In the kitchen, as he prepared the kettle, Spock came to him.

"Doctor, I wonder if I might…. How many lives have you delivered into the galaxy?"

Leonard thought about it. "I guess only a dozen or so deliveries in all, but individual lives… well, the gorn alone counts for eight." He smiled and Spock, to his surprise, smiled as well.

"I should like to share something with you, Leonard," Spock said, and put out his hand. 

The light in the kitchen was dim, sometimes they'd brown out this far from the city, but they were working as well as they could just then, they just seemed too dark for taking Spock's hand.

"Well, I…" he began to say, then put out his hand as well.

"It will not harm you," Spock promised. "The child shared it with me."

"Cecilia?" Leonard asked.

"No," Spock said, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and slid his palm against Leonard's, cool and dry, grip softer than a handshake.

At first nothing, then a heartbeat, not Spock's, too slow for Spock's, and then without warning, something washed over Leonard and he gasped, his knees almost buckled and Spock reached out with his other hand to steady him by the arm. He felt warm all over, and then shockingly cold, suddenly bright, and his stomach lurched, his lungs seemed about to burst with a cry he couldn't hold. The rest was confusion and light, all pink and glowing, then warmth and comfort, fear and something… the only thing he could compare it with was the first time he'd been to space, all that vastness, black and glittering and new.

Spock released his hand and Leonard stumbled, drifting back to lean against the kitchen counter. He gaped for a moment, then began to laugh, tears prickling at his eyes. The kettle had begun to whistle.

He looked wonderingly at his hand, then at Spock, still laughing.

"Spock..." he said, quite breathless.

"You are welcome, Leonard," Spock said, and stopped the kettle from whistling, then left Leonard standing there in the kitchen, unsteady on weak knees. He laughed again, and smiled, and checked his palm several times as if some evidence might be left there, and then made himself a cup of tea.  
___

Through the loft in the barn one could climb out onto the roof, and on the eastern side Spock had built a platform where he could bring his telescope. He was up there the night that the mail ran late, so that Leonard read the letter without Spock over his shoulder, standing in the porch light with the moths fluttering around his head. It was only one page anyway, only one line, and Jim's name below it. Leonard headed toward the barn.

He found Spock sitting on the platform, not looking through the telescope, only up at the stars. Leonard thought he might have interrupted his meditation but then Spock reached out a hand to help him up. 

Leonard had never been up there, though there was room enough for two, and it was just high enough above the trees that the sky opened up wide. He gaped a little as he sat next to Spock, looking up.

"Boy that sure is something," Leonard said. 

Spock nodded. "Would you like to lie down with me, doctor?"

Leonard felt his face go warm but once he lay back he understood why Spock asked it of him. Without the ground below all they could see were stars, twinkling out in the black, and the almost-full moon, the only reminder that they were still on Earth. Without it, they might have been standing in the observation deck of the Enterprise. They could have been home.

They stayed like that for a while, saying nothing, listening to the wind through the pines. An owl called and somehow that was a reminder to Leonard about the letter.

"There's a letter from Jim," he said quietly, so as not to spoil the illusion too much. "It was short and sloppy, no details, but he says he thinks he's making some headway at last."

Spock was quiet. Leonard hadn't exactly expected a celebration but he expected something. Surely he'd heard him, they were less than a foot apart. Overhead, a cloud entered their view, in an otherwise perfectly clear sky. Spock shifted a little beside him. 

"I have been considering our circumstances, Leonard," Spock said slowly, "if we are to be marooned here for the rest of our lives, you should begin to consider a life apart from me. You may wish to find a mate, to build a life which is not hampered by the past. To create a new future for yourself."

Leonard sat up, looking down at Spock, whose face was calm and serious. "Where's this coming from, Spock? I don't want to find someone else… I mean, didn't you hear what I just said, Jim thinks he's done it!"

"I am glad to hear it, doctor, however, should that not occur, there are other options to you."

"I'm aware of my options. What is this… are you saying you want me to go? That you wish to go? Has it been that difficult being stuck with me?

Spock sat up too, knees pulled up close as if to protect him. The moon was so bright that Leonard could see every subtle change to his expression, the sort of things he would have missed two years ago: determination to the set of his mouth, "I am quite content here, doctor. However," uncertainty in his brow, "it is logical that someone with your compassion and, indeed, your passion," sadness in the lift of his chin, "might wish to find a suitable, compatible recipient." 

Leonard watched him for a moment, then gave a soft laugh. "You know, there was a time when I'd let that get to me, but it's just not going to work anymore." He reached out, put a hand over Spock's where it rested at his side, and Spock had to look at him. "I enjoy your company, Spock, I like being here with you. I like seeing you happy, even when you're pretending not to be, and I can't wait to wake up every day just to say good morning to you. It's the one thing that's made being stuck in this damned time warp not so bad." He smiled a little crooked, feeling suddenly shy. "Now I don't know how it works on Vulcan, but on Earth we call that a pretty good deal."

The breeze picked up and moved Spock's hair, the noise of the wind in the trees grew louder, and Spock just watched him, eyes black pools in the night. Then, beneath Leonard's palm, Spock turned his hand over to take Leonard's. Leonard was suddenly reminded of a moonlit night on a rooftop in New York.

"I think I might have to kiss you, Spock," Leonard said softly. "You gonna throw me off the roof if I try it?"

Spock shook his head. "No, Leonard."

He expected Spock's lips to be cool to the touch, but they were warm and soft against his own and when he slid a hand to the back of Spock's neck, into the soft hair there and pulled him closer, there was no word of discouragement or question of Leonard's logic or intent. 

The first drops of rain hit them a little while later, after they had lain back down and watched the stars between kissing, and Spock had shown him how to kiss like Vulcans, with their first and second fingers touching, and Leonard had said he didn't ever want to let go.

They climbed down from the platform and down into the barn. By the time they crossed the lawn it was pouring, and they ran through the grass holding hands, with the sky falling down and the moon peeking out at them through the storm clouds. Inside the house they didn't turn on any lights, but shed their wet clothes and boots by the door and Leonard tried to go to get a towel but Spock took his hand again and they stood and kissed until they were nearly dry. 

Leonard led them to his bedroom where he knew the moonlight would shine in brightest. He didn't know what Vulcans thought about sex outside of bonded marriage, and he didn't really want to ask just then. 

"Would you like to lie down with me, Spock?" he asked, remembering Spock's words on the barn roof. Here, in Leonard's bedroom, standing in their shorts and wet hair, it felt a prudish sort of thing to say, but Spock pulled him by the hand into bed, and soon they were wrapped up in each other so tightly he didn't feel the need to say anything.  
___

A cry woke Leonard hours later. Spock was sitting up next to him in bed, back straight and tense, and when Leonard touched him he was damp with sweat. Spock waved his hand away, his breathing rapid and uneven. Leonard turned on the lamp but Spock did not see him, staring into the middle distance at nothing.

"Spock…"

"A moment, please, doctor…"

Leonard sat back, feeling helpless, and soon Spock's breathing slowed. He blinked, coming back to himself. He looked at Leonard.

"I have received a message," he said, as if the words were a surprise to him.

He explained that Jim had, in fact, been successful, that in their future time Uhura and Scotty, after watching the portal go through several iterations of the timeline after Spock and Jim left, had come to the same conclusion as Spock about the nature of it, and had waited and watched until there was a version in which the Enterprise once again existed. They had sent one of the security team through the portal and into the past, which was, of course, now the future.

"Lt. Hadley appeared to me on the Enterprise more than ten years before the event at the portal, while I was still serving under the command of then Captain Pike. He explained the situation to me which I found most intriguing."

"Get to the point, Spock! You mean the Enterprise exists?"

"It does indeed, doctor. We visited the portal in that time and I was able to formulate a calculation which allowed me to pinpoint the precise time and place where a displaced individual might return to their own time provided that no substantial alterations had occurred. I was able to return Lt. Hadley to his time, that is, to our time. The paroxysm you just witnessed was my mind assimilating the new… old information."

"If you knew about it, couldn't you have just stopped me from overdosing on the cordrazine in the first place?"

"On the contrary, it was necessary that I not interfere with the timeline in any way. You had to-- excuse me for saying so doctor-- lose your mind enough to jump through the portal, just as we had to follow you."

Leonard wanted to be angry but he couldn't, he really couldn't. He grasped Spock's shoulders, his voice desperate. "But, you know where to go now? We're going home?" 

"We are indeed, doctor," Spock said, and there was no smile or smugness but Leonard hugged him anyway, kissed him sitting there on his bed, tangled in sheets, the dawn just beginning to brighten the world outside the window.

After a moment Spock pulled away. "If you will excuse me, I must meditate." Then he stood and left Leonard there alone. It seemed sudden and odd but it was Spock after all and anyway, nothing could go wrong that day. 

They were going home.


	4. Home

They had eight days. Spock said there was an opportunity sooner but they wouldn't make it in time, as they had to return to New York, to the place where they had come through to be sure to pick up that same current of time.

It was the evening after Spock's revelation when he had finally come out of his room, having spent all day in meditation, Leonard having nearly paced a hole in the floor waiting to hear more news. He made dinner for them while Spock sipped tea and they made plans to ride into town and call Jim, to pack only a few things and to leave the rest with the Johnsons. The car would get them to New York, Spock thought, but the train would be faster, with fewer chance for problems along the way.

Throughout their planning Spock seemed to share little of Leonard's joy, and though he allowed Leonard's touch he did not seek it out or even, Leonard realized after a few stolen kisses, return it. Leonard tried to put that down to distraction, to having a new mission and calculations to check and re-check with all possible variables. But that night Spock went again to his own room and Leonard couldn't help but wonder about it as he cleaned up his office, putting things away for whomever might replace him. Perhaps for Spock there was now no logic behind a relationship between them. Perhaps it had only made sense in their isolation. They were going home, back to the ship and the original mission, and perhaps most importantly, back to Jim.

They left on a Saturday so that Mr. Johnson could drive them to Atlanta, the house shuttered up and sitting there like a friend to whom Leonard must forever say goodbye. On the door, the sign was turned to read, 'The Doctor is Out'.

Some part of Leonard was sorry to be leaving this lush and simple place, and all of the people they'd met. He thought Spock might have felt the same but Spock said nothing and gave no impression of any such regret, his expression more stoic than ever. They had no trunk, no telescope, just two small bags they carried at their sides. In Leonard's he had kept only a basic emergency aid kit and the stethoscope he'd brought from New York, a stack of photographs, a change of clothes and, of course, his uniform. 

He had tried a few more times to rouse Spock into some semblance of the man he'd seen that stormy evening they had spent together, but Spock remained distant and unresponsive, and Leonard was too hurt to even be angry about it. By the time they arrived in New York, nothing had been said on the matter, and that, Leonard assumed, was that.  
___

The days before the calculated moment of their departure went by in a blur. They met Jim at the hotel room he'd rented, all smiles and warm handshakes, even if he looked too tired and thin for Leonard's liking. He said little about how he'd accomplished his mission to change the destiny of the planet. Leonard thought he might not be too proud of himself. The whole story of Spock's mental reboot was explained in full, however, in even greater detail than it had first been told to Leonard, until Leonard had grown tired of seeing the captain and his first officer in such fine spirits and close proximity, and had excused himself. He sat at a diner and had coffee and pie, and counted the hours and the minutes until he could be back in his med bay.  
___

Edith Keeler sat in her little office in the 21st Street mission. She didn't even look surprised when the three of them walked into the room. She looked too disheartened for that.

It was the day of their return.

"Doctor McCoy," she said at first, and stood to shake his hand. "We've sorely missed you."

He smiled and held her hand as she asked how he'd been. She wouldn't look at Jim, he noticed, not until Jim spoke.

"I know you can't be glad to see me," Jim said.

She looked annoyed to be interrupted, but smiled sweetly. "And why shouldn't I be, Jim Kirk? I've no reason to be upset with you, have I?"

"I guess not," Jim said, "not yet. It won't be apparent for some time but… well things have changed. Your peacekeeping mission is done. You can't make a difference now."

She lifted her chin in defiance. "People can always make a difference, _captain_."

Jim took a step forward. Edith didn't step back or even flinch, but something made Jim stop. "Not you… not anymore. That's why we're here. We're going back. We want you to come with us."

She looked at him, incredulous, then at Leonard and he nodded to confirm it. She looked to Spock at the door who said, "It is true, Miss Keeler."

Her laughter then was so easy sounding that it might have fooled anyone into believing it, but she sobered too quickly, and returned to her place behind the desk.

"Even if I believed you, and I do not, I'm too busy here. I am needed. I can and will make a difference, and I wouldn't want to live in a world where a man like you makes all the rules."

"Edith--" Leonard began to say when Jim said nothing, but Spock interrupted.

"The captain did what was necessary for your world to progress as it necessarily should have. Some of his actions, indeed, all of our collusion in it, may have been regrettable, but unavoidable. This world does not need you. It has survived once without you, and the future you seek is there, in our time. It will be unfamiliar at first, perhaps frightening. I know something of being displaced, indeed it has been my natural state for most of my life. But I assure you, Miss Keeler, that given time, you will feel quite at home."

The room was quiet, Leonard felt a heavy weight in his chest watching Spock, and then Miss Keeler said, simply, "You're all of you mad, and I'll thank you to leave."

The three of them looked at one another, then headed to the door, but at the last moment Jim turned, drawing something from his pocket, a slip of paper with a time and place, and laid it carefully on a table near the door.

"In case you change your mind," he said softly, and closed the door behind him.  
___

In the hotel room that night, they changed into their uniforms. Jim's hung on him, awkward and too big. Spock's fit him a little tighter than it had before, stretching especially across his shoulders, reminding Leonard of days in the garden, afternoons in the Johnson's cornfield. Leonard's fit him exactly the same.

They hid their uniforms with overcoats, though it was hardly necessary so late at night, then walked three blocks to the storefront where Spock said they would find the portal, a plain looking place, nothing remarkable about it. They had only a few seconds. They walked forward as if they might step through the store windows, and at the last Jim turned and looked behind them, and then they were through, and on the other side was a dimly lit planetoid and Uhura and Scotty, and two security personnel and somewhere overhead the Enterprise was in orbit.

Relief on Scotty and Uhura's faces, rushed explanations of what they found, how they couldn't believe their plan had worked, amazement that it had been years for Spock and the Captain and Dr. McCoy and only hours for them, until, in a lull, in a moment of quiet, Jim turned to the portal once more. He stood there, waiting for something.

"Captain…" Uhura said after a few moments, and Jim turned away.

"Let's get the hell out of here."  
___

Life on the ship returned to normal surprisingly quickly. Leonard supposed that was because it had been less than a day in this time, from ship to shore and back. Only Leonard and Spock and Jim knew it as anything more than that, though Spock never let on that anything was amiss and Jim was, as always, remarkably resilient.

So it was left to Leonard to be sullen about the whole thing, which suited him just fine and everyone expected it anyway. He got on with his examinations and missions and tried not to hit the Saurian brandy more than he had before. Mostly he tried not to think about Spock, but every time he slept he dreamed of cramped apartments and spacious old farm houses, of cold winter nights and hot summer days, of black hair running soft between his fingers as he trimmed it, of high grass whispering on the undercarriage of an old Model T, of rooftops, of storms, of Spock's hand in his.

He tried not to think of Spock but then Spock had turned out to be engaged and Leonard had been part of the wedding party and had seen a side of Spock he'd never believed possible, until the whole thing went a bit sideways with no marriage at all, and Leonard had watched the pure, unconcealed joy on Spock's face after finding Jim alive.

He tried not to think of Spock but he'd ended up in an alternate universe where an alter-Spock with a beard had force-melded with him and had brought all of those memories to the surface, causing the militant not-Spock to blush and apologize and to help them get home.

He tried not to think of Spock but then he'd met Spock's parents, his graceful mother, Amanda, who had told Leonard about Spock's childhood pet sehlat, and Spock had looked as if she'd just shown Leonard naked baby bathtub photos, and then together he and Spock had saved Spock's father's life.

He tried not to think of Spock but then Spock had gone out on what could have been a suicide mission as far as they knew, and had asked Leonard to wish him luck, and Leonard had watched him board the shuttlecraft with an ache in his chest and a lump in his throat that he could barely even speak around.

And then they had lost contact.  
___

The audio crackled and popped, everyone on the bridge seemed to hold their breath, waiting to hear any word from Spock, from out there in the murk, any sign of life.

“—recommend you abandon any rescue attempt. Do not risk the ship further on my behalf.”

Leonard’s heart leapt into his throat at the sound of Spock’s voice: alive! 

“Shut up, Spock, we’re trying to rescue you!”

“Why thank you…” Spock drawled as the audio spat, “ _Captain_ McCoy.”

In medical bay, with Spock safe on a table, little more than a few green-smudged abrasions to his brow and some bruised ribs, Leonard went through the examination without an unnecessary word. He all but bit his lip to keep from starting an argument he knew they couldn’t finish with Christine and Jim and every damned other body crowded in his med bay. Spock didn’t comment, but he followed Leonard’s directions without complaint, a most unusual occurrence, and once or twice they caught each other’s gaze and, always, Leonard broke it first.

Leonard retreated to his office after that, poured himself a drink and waited. He wasn’t sure what for. He tried to think of how to even start, of how to finish, he even wondered if he had any drug that would get through that damned thick head of Spock’s and make him see… to see what? They had had their chance and Spock had pushed it all behind them, left it on Earth like the clothes he no longer needed, destroyed it like the inventions which he’d said were too advanced to be left behind in that time. Their story was of another time and place.

“Doctor?” Spock said softly, standing in the doorway. Leonard had not even heard the doors slide open.

Leonard cleared his throat and, to his surprise, found he needed to wipe his cheek as well. “Yes, Spock?”

“I feel quite well, if you will permit it, I should like to return to my quarters.”

Leonard puffed out a little laugh, even managed a smile. “Since when do you wait for my permission?”

Spock stepped further into the room. “Doctor, I understand that…” he searched for the right words, something Spock rarely lacked, “well I sensed your distress and I wished to assure you that I am quite alright.”

“I’m the doctor, Spock, don’t you think I know that?” He stood, his voice rising a little. But Spock’s other statement echoed in his thoughts. He spoke more evenly, “Do you mean that you sensed my distress just now?”

Spock nodded.

Leonard walked around the desk so that they stood closer. The lights were low and Spock was still in his black undershirt, his face seeming almost illuminated from within.

“And when you were on the shuttle?” Leonard asked.

“Of course,” Spock said. “My thoughts…” he paused again to find the words, twice in as many minutes must have been a record. “Even with the loss of so many of my people still so near, at the moment when I felt the loss of my own life to be imminent, my thoughts turned to you, doctor.”

“Yes,” Leonard said, beginning to understand, “I knew you were alive! I told Jim so.”

“A by-product, no doubt, of my meditation on our time together, which you should know brought me great comfort.”

It felt like a punch, exactly the sort of thing Leonard wanted to hear but had never expected. He stepped closer, feeling the heat of anger prickle.

“What do you mean ‘I should know’? All I know is that ever since we got back from Earth, no, even before that,” he punctuated this with a stern poke to Spock’s chest with one finger, “ever since we found out we’d be able to return to our time, you’ve shut me out!”

Spock looked surprised at that. “On the contrary, doctor, I merely attempted to return our relationship to its previous state, prior to our extended stay on Old Earth. I felt this would be your goal, your preference as well, and that you would wish to be free from a relationship born of limitation and isolation. I did not wish to assume that you would find such an arrangement, in this time, desirable.”

Leonard’s hands were in fists at his sides. They were quite close now, anger or desperation, he didn’t know, drawing him nearer to that body which he had missed, that spirit that infuriated and invigorated him.

“You listen here, you… you… Vulcan! I don’t know what kind of screwy ideals of courtesy or chivalry or even damnable logic you’re operating under, but the easiest—the _practical_ way to tell what someone wants is to ask them! And if you think that my feelings for you were the product of, of limitation, of convenience, well I submit, commander, that you don’t know anything about anything!” He gasped for air, suddenly out of breath. “And anyway if you can't tell that I love you, that, dammit, I always have, then you're a pretty terrible telepath!”

The room seemed too warm, too close, and Spock’s eyes too black in the dim light. Then Spock reached out to him, slowly, even so close, and touched his face, not in the fashion of a meld, just a brush of thumb along Leonard's cheekbone, fingers light on his jaw. They seemed to tremble, and something felt as if it flowed out of Leonard, leaching out like warmth into Spock’s fingertips, and Spock’s dark eyes softened.

"Yes…" Spock said gently, "I see now, Leonard, as I had not allowed myself before, for fear of what I might find."

Leonard’s breathing began to calm, then to speed up again as he moved closer. He sought out Spock's other hand and found it, brushing their fingers together. All of his anger, his hurt, was gone, and he gave a little smile to prove it. "I thought fear was a human emotion, Mr. Spock."

Spock lifted their joined hands and placed their two fingers together as they had on the roof of an Old Earth barn. "As you are fond of pointing out, Leonard, I am also half human." He leaned forward then and stopped, to Leonard's utter frustration. "May I?" he asked.

Leonard frowned. It seemed appropriate. "Well if you don't, I will!" and with his free hand pulled Spock from behind the neck and kissed him, like a human, like a Vulcan, and didn't let go.


End file.
